You cannot raise the standard against oppression, or leap into the breach to relieve injustice, and still keep an open mind to every disconcerting fact, or an open ear to the cold voice of doubt.
—Learned Hand (1872–1961) American Judge, Judicial Philosopher
Oppression is but another name for irresponsible power, if history is to be trusted.
—William Pinkney (1764–1822) American Politician, Diplomat
The camomile, the more it is trodden on, the faster it grows.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
Even today a crude sort of persecution is all that is required to create an honorable name for any sect, no matter how indifferent in itself.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
You can’t hold a man down without staying down with him.
—Booker T. Washington (1856–1915) African-American Educationist
Oppression that is clearly inexorable and invincible does not give rise to revolt but to submission.
—Simone Weil (1909–1943) French Philosopher, Political Activist
The smallest worm will turn, being trodden on; and doves will peck, in safeguard of their brood.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
Fishes live in the sea, as men do a-land; the great ones eat up the little ones.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
There is no happiness for him who oppresses and persecutes; there can be no repose for him. For the sighs of the unfortunate cry for vengeance to heaven.
—Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746–1827) Swiss Educator
When there is oppression, the only self-respecting thing is to rise and say this shall cease today, because my right is justice. If you are stronger, you have to help the weaker boy or girl both in play and in the work.
—Sarojini Naidu (1879–1949) Indian Feminist, Poet, Political Leader
They have given us into the hand of new unhappy lords. Lords without anger and honor, who dare not carry their swords. They fight by shuffling papers; they have bright dead alien eyes; They look at our labor and laughter as a tired man looks at flies.
—G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English Journalist, Novelist, Essayist, Poet
The oppression of any people for opinion’s sake has rarely had any other effect than to fix those opinions deeper, and render them more important.
—Hosea Ballou (1771–1852) American Theologian
Ours is the century of enforced travel… of disappearances. The century of people helplessly seeing others, who were close to them, disappear over the horizon.
—John Berger (1926–2017) English Art Critic, Novelist
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.
—James Madison (1751–1836) American Founding Father, Statesman, President
Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.
—Frederick Douglass (1817–95) American Abolitionist, Author, Editor, Diplomat, Leader
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever.
—George Orwell (1903–50) English Novelist, Journalist
But there is only one thing which gathers people into seditious commotion, and that is oppression.
—John Locke (1632–1704) English Philosopher, Physician
People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles.
—Frank Herbert (1920–86) American Science Fiction Writer
There can be no really pervasive system of oppression, such as that in the United States, without the consent of the oppressed.
—Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy (1890–1995) American Socialite, Philanthropist
All oppression creates a state of war; this is no exception.
—Simone de Beauvoir (1908–86) French Philosopher, Writer, Feminist
An oppressive government is more to be feared than a tiger.
—Confucius (551–479 BCE) Chinese Philosopher
My dear fellow citizens: For forty years you have heard from my predecessors on this day different variations of the same theme: how our country flourished, how many millions of tons of steel we produced, how happy we all were, how we trusted our government, and what bright perspectives were unfolding in front of us. I assume you did not propose me for this office so that I, too, would lie to you. . . We live in a contaminated moral environment. We have fallen morally ill because we became used to saying one thing and thinking another. We have learned not to believe in anything, to ignore each other, to care only about ourselves. Notions such as love, friendship, compassion, humility, or forgiveness have lost their depth and dimensions. . . The previous regime . . . reduced man to a means of production and nature to a tool of production. Thus it attacked both their very essence and their mutual relationship. It reduced gifted and autonomous people to nuts and bolts in some monstrously huge, noisy, and stinking machine.
—Vaclav Havel (1936–2011) Czech Dramatist, Statesman
Nature in darkness groans and men are bound to sullen contemplation in the night: restless they turn on beds of sorrow; in their inmost brain feeling the crushing wheels, they rise, they write the bitter words of stern philosophy and knead the bread of knowledge with tears and groans.
—William Blake (1757–1827) English Poet, Painter, Printmaker
The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–68) American Civil Rights Leader, Clergyman
Some men look at things the way they are and ask why? I dream of things that are not and ask why not?
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.
—Thomas Paine (1737–1809) American Nationalist, Author, Pamphleteer, Inventor
If a man wishes to rid himself of a feeling of unbearable oppression, he may have to take hashish.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
Everybody knows there is no fineness or accuracy of suppression; if you hold down one thing, you hold down the adjoining.
—Saul Bellow (1915–2005) Canadian-American Novelist
Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time; the need for mankind to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–68) American Civil Rights Leader, Clergyman
One Law for the Lion and Ox is Oppression.
—William Blake (1757–1827) English Poet, Painter, Printmaker
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